Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found. A new analysis may crush their optimism.
To calculate the likelihood that they’ll make radio contact with extraterrestrials, SETI scientists use what’s known as the Drake Equation. Formulated in the 1960s by Frank Drake of the SETI Institute in California, it approximates the number of radio-transmitting civilizations in our galaxy at any one time by multiplying a string of factors: the number of stars, the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those that are habitable, the probability of life arising on such planets, its likelihood of becoming intelligent and so on. [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]
The values of almost all these factors are highly speculative. Nonetheless, Drake and others have plugged in their best guesses, and estimate that there are about 10,000 tech-savvy civilizations in the galaxy currently sending signals our way — a number that has led some scientists to predict that we’ll detect alien signals within two decades.
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Life might not be rare in the Universe but most of it may be at the virus and bacteria level with animals being relatively rare and advanced on the biological level (Complex living beings being a form of natural technology
), but technologically advanced civilization may be exceedingly rare.
The Universe seems rather old to us but maybe we are what in billions of years future advanced civilizations will call the ” Ancients or the Old ones ” ? After all there has to be a first technological civilization !
In Sci-Fi terms we may be the first or the currently very rare Intelligent species that have also achieved a technological culture ?
There might be others out there in the entire Universe but maybe we are the only one’s in this Galaxy ?